This Time, Lenin and the Bridge

 

5/23/26 Fremont Bridge and Lake Washington Ship Canal, Fremont neighborhood

Sketching in the Fremont neighborhood is always a game of “choose your icon.” The Troll, JP Patches & Gertrude, Lenin, Saturn, the Rocket (bonus points if you can get both Saturn and the Rocket in the same composition), the Fremont Bridge, the topiary dinosaurs – did I miss any? USk Seattle hit them all last Saturday on a cloudy afternoon.

Although I’ve sketched all of them multiple times, I picked an icon that I may not have sketched as often. It was breezy and chilly by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, but I wanted to start with a peek-a-boo view of the brilliantly blue Fremont Bridge.

After walking around Fremont for a while to warm up, I ended up at the statue of Lenin, where several other sketchers were already settled in at the former Soviet Union leader’s feet. Always a bit daunted by the formidable monument, I walked across the street for a more distant view. I chose a purple and green palette that would contrast strongly with Lenin’s red hand.

In fact, the red hand was just what I needed to fill the short time remaining until our throwdown, when the sun finally came out.

Statue of Lenin

Thornton Creek

 

5/21/26 Thornton Creek water quality channel, Northgate neighborhood

Northgate’s Thornton Creek water quality channel is less than a half-hour’s walk from home, yet I’ve sketched there only a few times. Although the freshly landscaped channel, new in 2009, was still growing in when I first sketched there in 2013, it’s now lush with mature plantings. This time of year, it’s a zillion shades of green with spots of colorful blossoms.

Kim and I take advantage of the sunshine.

I think the main reason I avoided sketching there for many years was that I was intimidated by all that green. In that 2013 post, I drew the landscaping but avoided painting it, knowing that I’d end up with “a huge, dark green mess.” A month later, I was brave enough to get my green paints out (see below), but the foliage was no less daunting.

Kim had never been to Thornton Creek channel before, so I took advantage of a gorgeous afternoon to introduce her to it. Somewhere in the 13 years since those previous visits, sketching layers of lush greenery became less formidable. It probably happened around the time I quit watercolors and embraced pencils! This time I added water-soluble crayons to the mix. While it’s not without challenges, I’m relieved that I’m no longer intimidated by layers of green.

I bravely got my watercolors out for this sketch in 2013.

Sidewalk Stories

 

4/12/26 Maple Leaf

If you walk north of Northeast 95th in Maple Leaf, the sidewalk abruptly ends, and the pavement turns to gravel, which cars park on haphazardly without a curb to guide them. Pedestrians must then walk the slalom of parked cars or negotiate the road with moving vehicles. I always wonder, did the city's tax money suddenly run out?

Even sidewalks can have stories.

If you note the temperature as the days move forward, you'll see them gradually getting warmer. My walk-sketches become a record of spring's optimism.

4/8/26 Green Lake

4/24/26 Green Lake

5/5/26 Maple Leaf Park

5/8/26 a Maple Leaf garden

5/8/26 Maple Leaf

5/11/26 Maple Leaf

5/20/26 Maple Leaf

SLU Study (and Bonus Banana Stand)

 

5/19/26 South Lake Union

Before meeting Ching for happy hour, I arrived a little early in South Lake Union to try a color temperature/values study. One thing I really like about the area around the Amazon Spheres is the stark contrast between the harsh, glassy surfaces of buildings and the soft, organic textures of the trees and other vegetation. Influenced by Colin Woodward’s abstract approach, I tried not to think about “drawing” the Spheres and other buildings. Instead, I focused on shapes, values and especially color temperature (my usual focus, especially this time of year) using only three crayons.

Although I don’t usually like to show a photo of something I’ve sketched, since this is a study, I thought it might be useful, since it’s probably hard to tell what the scene actually looks like in the sketch. I’m planning to do more studies eventually from the photo.

A minor distraction in my study was Amazon’s Community Banana Stand (free bananas are distributed here daily to anyone who wants one). I was planning to sketch it later, but just as I had looked up, I saw that some workers had come by with ladders and a large tarp to wrap up the stand for the night. It got covered so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to draw the window or any details on the stand except one wheel.

Amazon Community Banana Stand

Skagit River

5/18/26 Skagit River, Rockport, WA.

Some of my family were in town for a few days last weekend for an extended family event. I joined a few of them for a short road trip to the small town of Rockport about a hundred miles north of Seattle. Although Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Skagit County is known for its winter eagle feedings in the Skagit River, not many eagles were sighted the day we went. My brother, a wildlife photographer (I have sketched from some of his photos taken in Kenya), wanted to check it out for future reference.

Walking out onto a bridge across the river, I caught this lovely spot with the North Cascades looming behind it. If you zoom in closely, you might see that the tiny dot in the water is a fly fisherman. 

Although I've gotten rides before in my nephew's Tesla, this 
was my first experience in a charging station.

Technical notes: I’m not sure how evident it is in the results, but the color sketch was inspired by Colin Woodward’s techniques with water-soluble materials. His primary method is to apply relatively little pencil or crayon and instead employ the water to do more of the work. Using Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and Museum Aquarelle pencils, I did the same. I must say that the waterbrush hack I’ve been using lately is definitely efficient with his method. It’s easier to control the direction and density of water than spritzing, and the flat, broad brush edge is faster than a typical round waterbrush. I finished this sketch in the time it took my brother to take a few photos, and I didn’t keep anyone waiting.

375 and Onward

5/20/12 Magnuson Park, site of my very first USk outing

 A while back, someone in the global USk group had shared that she had reached a personal milestone of USk outings attended. That made me curious about how many I've attended, but I didn’t know how I would count them. Then I realized that I have posted on the USk Seattle blog every time I’ve participated – that made it easy. I went back through all my posts and made a spreadsheet of all the outings I’ve attended. It took a while to log them all, but now it’ll be easy to continue adding to the spreadsheet as I attend more.

Today, the 14^th anniversary of my very first USk outing, is a good day to commemorate the total to date: 375 outings!

My personal best was in 2025: 44 outings. Second best was 2017 with 39 outings. The worst year, of course, was 2020, when we met only for the first two-and-a-half months – five outings.

I’ve missed some outings, especially during the years I traveled heavily, so the spreadsheet is not comprehensive of all USk outings. Now that I’ve logged them all, though, I have a useful list of ideas, including some locations I’d forgotten about.

It’s funny now to read the blog post about that first outing, which took place only a few months after I had begun sketching. Here’s what I wrote:

On a rainy Sunday morning – the kind that would usually see me in my recliner with a second cup of coffee and the Seattle Times’ funnies – I drove out to Magnuson Park to join the Seattle Urban Sketchers at my first sketchcrawl. Introvert that I am, going alone to a social event like this – where I wouldn’t know anyone and I wasn’t sure what it would be like – is usually hard for me. The rain, the coffee and the recliner were all telling me I should skip this and go another time.

 But two things pushed me out the door: One was the Seattle Times’ full-page spreads that very morning of Gabi Campanario’s vibrant sketches of the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition. Talk about inspiring!

 The second was the commitment I had made to myself to give this sketchcrawl thing a try. It’s part of becoming an urban sketcher and getting out into the world – and really seeing the world.

 I’m glad I got out the door! Being part of my enthusiastic, supportive USk community has led to many friendships that I cherish. It feels good to be part of a tribe. (The sketch above is from my first USk outing on May 20, 2012.)

Captive

 

3/15/26

Something about being captive on a bus or train invites me to make editorial commentary about my fellow commuters. Public transportation is made for on-location comics: So many humans (and a canine) to observe and eavesdrop on. I also find myself having more time for self-critiquing, too.

3/17/26

4/18/26

4/19/26

4/25/26

4/30/26

5/9/26